12.5 Million Passengers Came through Moroccan Airports Jan-July 2018

Ahlam Ben Saga is a Cultural Studies graduate from university Mohammed V of Literature and Humanities in Rabat.

Aug 21, 2018

Rabat- Moroccan airports received 12.5 million passengers from January to July, and 2,089,194 passengers in July alone, an increase of 5.92 percent compared to July 2017.

Typically, tourism and travel in Morocco reaches its peak during summer, especially when it comes to religious tourism. This July and August, many pilgrims travelled to Mecca for Hajj and many Moroccans living abroad returned home for Eid al-Adha, explaining the increase in air traffic.

According to statistics from the National Office of Airports (ONDA), air traffic grew exceptionally; the number of passengers in Moroccan airports reached 12.5 million in the first seven months of 2018, an 11.82 percent growth from the previous year.

Casablanca’s Mohammed V Airport, the largest in Morocco, received 5.4 million travellers, representing 47 percent of the total number of passengers between January and July.

Meanwhile, 2.9 million passengers travelled through the Marrakech-Menara airport, and 1 million passengers traveled through Al Massira airport in the city of Agadir, in southwest Morocco.

In 2017, air traffic in grew significantly with an 11.63 percent rise in the number of passengers who passed through Moroccan airports.

In the first six months of 2018, revenue generated from non-resident tourists in Morocco increased by 15.2 percent to MAD 31.2 billion, up from MAD 27 billion in the same period a year earlier.

Approximately 5.1 million foreign tourists visited Morocco in the first six months of 2018, up 10 percent from the same period in 2017, according to statistics from Morocco’s Tourism Observatory.